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How I photograph Oriental's crafts - my first-time-ever trial

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August 21, 2012

This is my
experience of taking a craft photo. One month ago,
we decided to open Oriental on Etsy, my main mission is photograph and Pr for
our shop. I’ve searched
and read many tips on Etsy seller handbookabout photographing.

But when we
finished our product and I took picture, I still had difficulties. It likes you
have studied not enough.So I searched again and again on internet, on utube, to
improve my skill. The more I practice, the better my works are. I want to share
with you my tips, my experiments, and also some fails I got. By the end of the
day, I had a lot of funs with this photographing!

1. First time: I tried to
take a photo with a reflector like the photo, I simply thought
that, a good camera is enough. But, this is one of my first studo. With the
light is too hard and no diffusion. I’m not please at all with the result.

1st studio

2.Second time: This is the
first time I got acquainted with still - life photography. It's
really interesting to know how they set up the light to have the diffusion. I
followed the tutorials which I found on Utube and also on some blog. I made use
of all equipment I have at home, to make my own
"studio": A piece of remaining tracing paper since I was in
university to diffuse the light, the aluminum paper in the kitchen like
a reflector, my drawing table to stick the aluminum paper etc. How
happy I am when I saw the lighting effect when I use this way. The result is
quite good with a lot of help of photo editor software. But I’m not totally
satisfied because of the complicated setting I’ve made. It takes time. So I
tried to search on internet with key words "how to photograph craft or
jewelry or products" and i found the "light box" which will make
my work easier.

2nd studio

3. Third time: Voila, this
is my 2$ dollar lightbox, maybe you don’t believe but it’s true, because I took
a wooden frame on the street, somebody spited, then I enclosed it by bag
plastic, which easy to find at your home with clue of 1$ and sticking plaster which
cost 1$. So, 2$ for a lightbox.

And here are the photo
I’ve made with my "hand-made" studio and one with a lightbox.

With a little help of
computer software, so It’s done!!!

$2 lightbox

I will not
write about the photographing techniques, about setting up the light, I won’t
repeat because you can easily find on internet, I just want to share you my
lessons after my trip tocraftphotograph success.

You can watch
illustration on You tube or Google by searching some keywords like: still-life
photography, product photography or still-life light setting, etc.

Then list all
the equipment you need and think about how to get it.

Then, you can
learn from others' photos which has been taken that you found beautiful or
worth learning from.

2nd time without lightbox

The point is
that: you shouldn't just watch/read, you need to give a hand on it, practice
photographing! Don't just keep researching. My advice is to practice and learn
from what you've done so far. While practicing, you understand the mechanism of
craft photographing and find it more interesting, especially when the result is
reflected in your photos which are obviously better.

And that's my own experience. I will continue to search for tips on the
internet as I might not learn all what forerunners want to deliver.